Thiruvananthapuram, March 12 -- Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and two of his cabinet colleagues skipped Prime Minister Narendra Modi's event in Kochi on Wednesday over the reported non-inclusion of state Public Works Minister PA Mohammed Riyas among the invitees.

Among a slew of development projects for the state, the Prime Minister was scheduled to launch two critical stretches of the expanded National Highway -66 in Kasaragod and Kozhikode districts, a project in which the state government has invested and in which state PWD minister's role played an important role.

In a reported protest against the exclusion, Riyas and Udma MLA CH Kunhambu held parallel inaugurations and road shows of the National Highway projects in Ramanat...